Utopia Talk / Politics / The poison of identity politics

Rugian Member	Tue Aug 15 10:37:27 The Poison of Identity Politics By The Editorial Board Aug. 13, 2017 5:58 p.m. ET As ever in this age of Donald Trump, politicians and journalists are reducing the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday to a debate over Mr. Trump’s words and intentions. That’s a mistake no matter what you think of the President, because the larger poison driving events like those in Virginia is identity politics and it won’t go away when Mr. Trump inevitably does. The particular pathology on display in Virginia was the white nationalist movement led today by the likes of Richard Spencer, David Duke and Brad Griffin. They alone are to blame for the violence that occurred when one of their own drove a car into peaceful protesters, killing a young woman and injuring 19 others. The Spencer crowd courts publicity and protests, and they chose the progressive university town of Charlottesville with malice aforethought. They used the unsubtle Ku Klux Klan symbolism of torches in a Friday night march, and they seek to appear as political martyrs as a way to recruit more alienated young white men. Political conservatives even more than liberals need to renounce these racist impulses, and the good news is that this is happening. The driver has been charged with murder under Virginia law, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions opened a federal civil-rights investigation and issued a statement condemning the violence: “When such actions arise from racial bigotry and hatred, they betray our core values and cannot be tolerated.” Many prominent conservatives also denounced the white-nationalist movement. Mr. Trump was widely criticized for his initial statement Saturday afternoon that condemned the hatred “on many sides” but failed to single out the white nationalists. Notably, David Duke and his allies read Mr. Trump’s statement as attacking them and criticized the President for doing so. The White House nonetheless issued a statement Sunday saying Mr. Trump “includes white supremacists, KKK, Neo-Nazi and all extremist groups” in his condemnation. As so often with Mr. Trump, his original statement missed an opportunity to speak like a unifying political leader. Yet the focus on Mr. Trump is also a cop-out because it lets everyone duck the deeper and growing problem of identity politics on the right and left. The politics of white supremacy was a poison on the right for many decades, but the civil-rights movement rose to overcome it, and it finally did so in the mid-1960s with Martin Luther King Jr. ’s language of equal opportunity and color-blind justice. That principle has since been abandoned, however, in favor of a new identity politics that again seeks to divide Americans by race, ethnicity, gender and even religion. “Diversity” is now the all-purpose justification for these divisions, and the irony is that America is more diverse and tolerant than ever. The problem is that the identity obsessives want to boil down everything in American life to these categories. In practice this means allocating political power, contracts, jobs and now even salaries in the private economy based on the politics of skin color or gender rather than merit or performance. Down this road lies crude political tribalism, and James Damore’s recent Google dissent is best understood as a cri de coeur that we should aspire to something better. Yet he lost his job merely for raising the issue. A politics fixated on indelible differences will inevitably lead to resentments that extremists can exploit in ugly ways on the right and left. The extremists were on the right in Charlottesville, but there have been examples on the left in Berkeley, Oakland and numerous college campuses. When Democratic politicians can’t even say “all lives matter” without being denounced as bigots, American politics has a problem. Mr. Trump didn’t create this identity obsession even if as a candidate he did try to exploit it. He is more symptom than cause, though as President he now has a particular obligation to renounce it. So do other politicians. Yet the only mission of nearly every Democrat we observed on the weekend was to use the “white supremacist” cudgel against Mr. Trump—as if that is the end of the story. It isn’t, and it won’t be unless we confront this underlying politics of division. Not long ago we were rereading Justice Clarence Thomas’s prophetic opinion in Holder v. Hall, a 1994 Supreme Court ruling on dividing voting districts by race. “As a practical political matter,” he wrote, “our drive to segregate political districts by race can only serve to deepen racial divisions by destroying any need for voters or candidates to build bridges between racial groups or to form voting coalitions.” Writ large, Justice Thomas was warning that identity politics can destroy democratic trust and consent. http://www...f-identity-politics-1502661521
yankeessuck123 Member	Tue Aug 15 11:17:50 The broad point is correct. Identity politics is bad.
Forwyn Member	Tue Aug 15 11:45:57 2012: REEEEEE HUSSEIN OBAMA DIDN'T SPECIFICALLY SAY RADICAL ISLAMIC TERROR 2017: REEEEEE GRAND WIZARD TRUMP DIDN'T SPECIFICALLY SAY NAZI WHITE SUPREMACISTS
Trolly McAwesome Member	Tue Aug 15 11:52:34 "2012: REEEEEE HUSSEIN OBAMA DIDN'T SPECIFICALLY SAY RADICAL ISLAMIC TERROR " You were part of that fray, Mr. 9/11
Aeros Member	Tue Aug 15 11:54:48 Political tribalism has been a growing problem for years now. Its only going to get worse. I say this, because the Left Wing was traditionally the defender of meritocracy and equality for all regardless of race or gender. The Right Wing was the side of the political argument that had to deal the vocal opposition to this. Now though, the American Left Wing no longer believes in color-blind equality. They favor racial diversity, categorizing different groups and sub-groups, and viewing equality of outcome for all groups as more important then equality generally. This is a bad thing, because the arguments they are using at the same argument the White Supremacists on the Right have been making for decades now. Saying a company needs to hire more black people despite qualification is just the same as saying they need to hire only white people, regardless of qualifications. There can't be any defense against the worst elements of White Supremacy, because the traditional defenders against them in our political discourse are offering full throated support of their philosophy.
Forwyn Member	Tue Aug 15 11:55:00 No, I wasn't, revisionist idiot
Trolly McAwesome Member	Tue Aug 15 11:57:35 "No, I wasn't, revisionist idiot" Yes you were.
Forwyn Member	Tue Aug 15 11:58:32 Proof please.
Trolly McAwesome Member	Tue Aug 15 12:01:40 Years and years of topics. No time to look, just some of us remember your stances on things, revisionist.
Forwyn Member	Tue Aug 15 12:03:18 i.e. you're a fucktard
Rugian Member	Tue Aug 15 12:04:40 I have a hard time belieiving that as well, Forwyn isn't usually a "nuke Mecca" guy.
Trolly McAwesome Member	Tue Aug 15 12:06:01 i.e. Forseb is a bitch.
Forwyn Member	Tue Aug 15 12:12:34 I wax and wane on my Deus Vult levels. In 2012 I didn't really give a shit.
Trolly McAwesome Member	Tue Aug 15 12:13:34 Ha, then you wouldn't be here.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 15 12:14:49 "Calling us out on our racism makes us racist! It's your fault! you are forcing us to be racist!"
Seb Member	Tue Aug 15 12:18:05 Interesting factoid - the US GAO did a study on terror attacks since sept 12 2011. There were three times more white supremacist terror attacks than Islamic ones. The Islamic ones killed a tiny number more people, but circa 25% of those deaths were from the nightclub incident, and 25% from two other incidents. And yet, the predominant domestic terror focus in law enforcement, intelligence and media is on the latter, not the former.
Cold Rod Member	Tue Aug 15 12:24:03 This can't be true!
Forwyn Member	Tue Aug 15 12:27:39 "Ha, then you wouldn't be here." Plenty I cared about - I've been political, here included, for much of my life. In 2012? I largely ascribed to Rugian's philosophy that Islamic terror is a statistical anomaly, certainly not worth compromising fundamental freedoms ala Boston. My Deus Vult levels didn't start to rise until I saw the havoc wrought on the Middle East by Western leaders who favored Sunni rebel groups in a half dozen nations.
murder Member	Wed Aug 16 09:16:59 Identity politics exists because identity disparity exists. The political right would like for the disadvantaged to simply accept their lot in life, but that is simply not going to happen.
Aeros Member	Wed Aug 16 09:24:21 This isnt a clean left right divide Murder. Look at how the inquisition hounded Jim Webb out of the party. Held the official line on everything except the identity politics mantra. This is in fact precisely why Trump won. We can argue all day about the morality or necessity for identity politics, but the simple truth is that people vote for their interests and if the democratic party believes white people benefit from unique societal privlige that must be corrected for based up racial identification, then its highly unlike white people are going to vote for that party even if they agree with the rest of the platform. That is the simple truth.
murder Member	Wed Aug 16 09:47:20 No ... Trump won because Lincoln and Grant didn't have the balls to finish the job. The Confederacy should have met the fate of Carthage.
Hot Rod Revved Up	Wed Aug 16 09:50:09 President Trump's remarks have been right on from his first comments on Saturday. He consistently blamed both sides and that is as it should be.
Rugian Member	Wed Aug 16 09:54:04 murder strikes me as someone who watches the church-burning scene in The Patriot snd and is sad that the British didn't actually engage in such punitive measures against the rebels. Sadly for you, Lincoln and Grant didn't engage in industrial genocide in the South, so Aeros' point stands.
murder Member	Wed Aug 16 10:07:49 Hilarious! Does the prospect of the genocide of genocidal monsters disturb you? Don't worry, not all Carthaginians were murdered. Some were forced into slavery. Cue Alanis Morissette.
Rugian Member	Wed Aug 16 10:16:29 Condederates were genocidal monsters now? Thats news to me. Unfortunately, there was zero chance the Federals would have ever engaged in a Holocaust of the population of eleven states, because a) literally no one in 1865 wanted that and b) it would have been physically impossible. The South still exists, get over it. Anyway, I take it you're not interested in addressing Aeros point.
murder Member	Wed Aug 16 10:22:52 Not much is impossible if you set your mind to it and commit. And there shouldn't have been any Confederate state left. They should have been dissolved and the land auctioned off to pay the cost of the war and of integrating slaves into society.
murder Member	Wed Aug 16 10:23:36 What "point"?
Rugian Member	Wed Aug 16 10:57:45 Since we live in the real world and not in one where Lincoln and Grant could have murdered 5.6 million people and given away 770,000 square miles of land to black slaves without being immediately strung from lamposts, his point was as follows: "Aeros Member Wed Aug 16 09:24:21 This isnt a clean left right divide Murder. Look at how the inquisition hounded Jim Webb out of the party. Held the official line on everything except the identity politics mantra. This is in fact precisely why Trump won. We can argue all day about the morality or necessity for identity politics, but the simple truth is that people vote for their interests and if the democratic party believes white people benefit from unique societal privlige that must be corrected for based up racial identification, then its highly unlike white people are going to vote for that party even if they agree with the rest of the platform. That is the simple truth."
murder Member	Wed Aug 16 11:41:10 That's a post ... where is the point?
Aeros Member	Wed Aug 16 12:18:20 Why should white people vote for a party that say's that because of their inherited racial privilege, they specifically as a race of people, must be made to pay for social inequalities that exist as a by product of past government failures? Not even getting into the morality as to whether or not it is justifiable for such reparations to be made or mandated. But why specifically should White people utilize their ballot power to support the agenda?
obaminated Member	Wed Aug 16 12:22:22 Lol @ murder thinking johnny reb was a genocidal monster.
Aeros Member	Wed Aug 16 12:22:47 The point is there is no way that is going to happen. Its why the Democrats are still failing to make any headway, despite the idiot in the White House. While 3/4's of Americans agree he is a moron, the Democrats cannot move the needle because the alternative they are offering is a race based appeal to emotion that is inherently racist. To white people. Nobody is able to fully voice this opinion in the public discourse. But it simmers beneath the surface anyway. If the argument was for equality of OPPORTUNITY rather then equality of OUTCOME, then the Democrats would have the special sauce needed to break the Republican stranglehold on power at the State and Federal level. But the Democrats cannot have this debate, because even daring to voice the opinion that identity politics of any stripe by default means white identitarianism is validated results in a formal inquisition and summary burning at the stake.
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